CSNbbs

Those numbers make me feel better. As others have pointed out, the team seems to get good shots. We just can't make them. The issue doesn't seem to be with Haase's x's and o's ability.

However, I am worried about our defense and our motivation/confidence issues.

Didn't someone post a while back the drastic difference in our 3 pt% defense in conference and out of conference? IIRC, it was drastically worse in conference, than OOC. Our SOS hasn't been much different between the two, so there's two possibilities: 1. we always played crappy D and our opponents just finally started to make them on us during the conference slate or 2. the conference teams are better at three point shooting. Either way, not good. We have to play better on D, bottom line. Maybe mix in some pressure traps and things like others have advocated? I don't want a Mike D'antoni style team where you can score 105 and still lose. We have enough of that with our football team.

As to the fire/motivation/confidence/chemistry issues, those have been discussed a lot already. I'm hoping that those problems are specific to this team only and will go away next year. Part of this IS on the coach, however. He and his staff have to do their part to motivate the players, light a fire under their butts, and get them to play with some confidence.

I haven't looked at the numbers in depth, but I do think our 3 pt% defense has been worse in conference. 3 pt% defense is a bit tough to use for anything to me though, because if a guy hits a 25 footer, you are likely giving him that look. Conversely if a team misses 10 open looks, your defensive stats will look good, but mean nothing. We still seem to be having trouble with our rotations, and too many guys get wide open looks. I think a lot of this has to do with the personnel we have.

I think we are all going to be fine with Haase's philosophy on both ends once everything is in place. We have a lot of issues this year that we can't fix. We also have a lot of good things this year that will be coming back. If we were hitting our open looks, we wouldn't be complaining about our 3 point defense, because it wouldn't mater. What Tulane did in the first half was just ridiculous. That can be chalked up to some bad luck, because their percentages were through the roof. We were still only down 8 at the half. Had we continued to shoot near 50%(like we did in the first half), we would have won the game going away. Things are going to be a lot better for us when we get new guys in that can hit the shots we get that we are consistently missing this year.

I don't know how these numbers can make you feel better. But, in any event, I still see FT shooting as a major problem and submit that despite everything, better FT shooting would have won most of those games. In the losses above, we missed at least 9 FTs 5 of the 9 games, including 13 vs UNT and 15 vs Tulane. When you're trying to come back or even stay even and win at the end you need to hit the FTs. What doesn't show is how many front ends of 1-and-1's we missed taking away the possibility of 2 rather 1 pt. I always hope we go from 7 to 10 opposition team fouls very quickly during each half. As Coach Haase said, our margin for error is so slim we need all phases to be clicking.

Free throws are mental and simply point to the lack of confidence this team has.

Free throws are mental, only if you believe you are not a good free throw shooter, imo it goes more to the mental skills of focus and concentration, if you are a good free throw shooter, the odds are in your favor, its called muscle memory.

I watched Chad and Rucker miss the front end of 1 and 1, but come back and hit the front end when in the bonus...both seems to hit with more consisitence late rather then early in the game, its almost like the Bell conditioning..

To me its a lack of focus that you dont expect from veteran players,who should act like they have been there and done that.

I have more confidence in Williams when he goes to line then anyone, next up would be Mehenti and Foz, they are conditioned to believe they will hit the free throws.

Our best free throw shooters rarely gets into the game, the next best free throw shooter game is off so bad you can see his pain every time he shoots and miss.

Practicing free throws is okay but its not like shooting them in a game,you practice techniques, you play with muscle memory.